New Delhi, June 11: The 279th report of the Law Commission of India recommending the retention of the sedition law — insisting that repealing the legal provision can have serious adverse ramifications for the security and integrity of the country — has brought the colonial law back into the reckoning.
On May 11 last year, in a path-breaking order, the Supreme Court directed the Centre and all the state governments to refrain from registering any FIR or taking any coercive measures, while suspending all continuing investigations in relation to the Indian Penal Code’s Section 124A (sedition), and also directed that all pending trials, appeals, and proceedings be kept in abeyance.
The Law Commission of India not only recommended retaining the sedition law, but also loosening its definition and enhancing the punishment in terms of jail time. The commission cited a slew of Supreme Court judgments in connection with sedition in its report.
The challenge to the constitutionality of Section 124A came directly before the Supreme Court for the first time in Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar (1962). The constitution bench instituted for deciding the same upheld the validity of Section 124A and after taking a detailed account of the history of Section 124A, the court explicitly recognised that the state needs protection from the forces who seek to jeopardise its safety and stability.
Then, the court made the following observation: “This offence, which is generally known as the offence of sedition, occurs in Chapter VI of the Indian Penal Code, headed ‘of offences against the state’. This species of offence against the state was not an invention of the British government in India, but has been known in England for centuries. Every state, whatever its form of government, has to be armed with the power to punish those who, by their conduct, jeopardise the safety and stability of the State, or disseminate such feelings of disloyalty as to have the tendency to lead to the disruption of the State or to public disorder.”
In its report, the Law Commission said the Supreme Court in Kedar Nath Singh took note of its earlier decision in Ramji Lal Modi (1957) to observe that the latter judgment throws a good deal of light upon the ambit of the power of legislature to impose a reasonable restriction on the exercise of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.
The report said: “The Supreme Court took note of the strict test of proximity as laid down in Ramji Lal Modi and reinterpreted in Ram Manohar Lohia (1960). Thus, while laying down the test for sedition, the court held that unless the words used or the actions in question do not threaten the security of the state or of the public or lead to any sort of public disorder which is grave in nature, the act would not fall within the ambit of Section l24A of IPC.”
The panel said as per the Kedar Nath Singh judgment, proof of violence is not essential for establishing the offence of sedition. (IANS)
